Yard

Heavy rain Friday kept us from decorating early, but the weather broke Saturday in time to get some of it done and have a nice Halloween night. The spider in his web made his appearance of course: The web is … Continue reading →

Definition: Vicfragoretondere: The act of crashing your riding mower into things because while mowing the grass you are looking up at your Old Victorian and thinking, “Man that’s a gorgeous house.”

Texas lawns are pretty tough…

Blew the transmission in my lawn-mower last week. Sigh. A riding mower is important as, yes, I’m capable of push-mowing the entire lot, but that wouldn’t leave any time in the day for anything constructive. The upper bearing on the … Continue reading →

The drought last summer was difficult on a LOT of landscaping. We have three peach trees, and for sure, lost one, probably lost the second (the best one), and the third *WAS* surviving until I doused it quite thoroughly in … Continue reading →

My friend Raine over at Wild-Type caught this visitor helping to keep the neighborhood lawns mowed. An outstanding shot! That’s the Old Vic in the background of course… CUAgain, Daniel Meyer

We are having a serious drought…or as us native Texans that have been around a while call it, “A hot summer.” Going on 50 days over 100 degrees (40-some of those consecutive) and no meaningful rain. The combination is tough … Continue reading →

One thing about Texas…the heat of the summer keeps the plants in check…until that fall break and end of summer rainstorm. Then all the flowers say “MUST. BLOOM. NOW!” and explode. Great color and variety…all over the city. One interesting … Continue reading →

And thus the Lord did mightily smite…our pecan tree apparently. (pictures below) We had some unexplained stuff at the Clarksville house last weekend… A tripped circuit breaker on the old wiring…the old knob and tube wiring that remains is on … Continue reading →

We must have ordered too many peaches this year. Early on, I knocked a bunch off the tree as even when they were grape-sized I could see there were too many. I didn’t take near enough. The extremely heavy crop, … Continue reading →

Y’all may recall the exploding rose bush from about this time last year… They are back again this year. Roses are blooming with wild abandon all over town! Here’s a couple of ours! It’s been a really nice spring! Hmmmm…the … Continue reading →

This was our first Halloween in the Old Vic…we had no idea what to expect, but figured it was a worthy house to have a fun Halloween in and we’d decorate a bit. In our surburban “blah” house in Garland, … Continue reading →

Working on a halloween decoration…putting it together in this picture…it will be outside hanging on the edge of the porch.. To give a little size perspective…that is the “round room”…our entry parlor…the room is something like 24 feet in diameter…that’s … Continue reading →

One of the fun things about the first year or so of ownership of something like the The Old Vic is all the surprise plants that show up. At least one of them is an alien. See this thing? There … Continue reading →

Y’all might recall the last post…where I stated in no uncertian terms that “The Shed Must Die”. Well…it’s mostly dead. I was deep into killing it but had to stop when the alert level was raised to DefCon “KillMaimBuzz”. Hell … Continue reading →

I promised pictures… The most productive tree…it’s about a 25 footer. It had TONS of large peaches. This tree is weighed down with them, but they are all very small (very tasty though!) The bigger tree again…this limb is strained … Continue reading →

We had a couple of these giant moths hanging out on the side of the house Saturday morning. I assume they left before the heat made them explode (like popcorn). To give some perspective, the two lines it is between … Continue reading →

Peaches. Lots of ’em. There are three peach trees in our backyard at the Old Vic. It’s a bumper crop. They are are bowed to the ground with peaches. They were not quite ripe last weekend, but many were falling … Continue reading →

Last weekend we had two flowers bloom at the Old Vic. This random bloom: And a single rose… This week the rose bush…along with all the rest of them on the property, exploded! The picture doesn’t do it justice…they’re everywhere! … Continue reading →

Apparently there are some plants that are somewhat confused at the season…ya know…80 degrees one day, 30 the next, 80 the day after (maybe 20 this week so they say…) Anyway…some surprise blooms at the Old Vic…came up under the … Continue reading →